Where Miss Snark vented her wrath on the hapless world of writers and crushed them to sand beneath her T.Rexual heels of stiletto snark. The blog is dark--no further updates after 5/20/2007.

4.11.2007

Hold your pants on bub

As this nitwit reads your e-mail rules, some of the crap gets the "you've been deleted, nitwit" reply. Other crap, e.g. spam and stupid questions like this one, are simply deleted without any reply. So, there's a category of e-mail that receives no reply whatsoever. Am I reading correctly?

If so, how long should I wait to know that my other stupid question -- about using actual business names in my novel -- was too stupid for even a canned reply?

A couple people have made comments about getting hosed or deleted from the Snarkly email.

Here's a review:

1. If I post the answer to your question I send you an email that says "your answer is up on the blog, thanks for writing, MS". I try to send it before I post it but sometimes I miss.

2. If I'm not going to answer your email on the blog, but it's info I was interested in, or is otherwise useful, I do try to respond.

3. If I delete your email in a spring cleaning, you get a form email.

4. Emails I do not respond to: anything you're sending to a list ( if I'm cc'd, it's not getting an answer); emails asking me to post a link to your blog; emails asking me to do something for you like review a book; emails from anyone on the wrong side of the etiquette line; emails from people who've asked three versions of the same question and are starting to annoy me.

However: just cause you write to me on Tuesday doesn't mean I answer it on Tuesday. Or even if you write to me in March, you get a reply in March.

What about if I send a comment? Will you let me know that you've received it, and then read, it and then thought about it, and then decided to post it, and then actually post it? Huh, can you at least let me know then, just so I can be sure?

Gosh, based upon some of the snarky comments, some people wrongly believe I was snarking the snark! Please be assured I meant no snarkiness to her Snarkness and only wished for clarity and nirvana, which I received.

I've had 2 questions bounced months after submission, and one answered after a much shorter time.

My perception: if your question is seen as relevant to a range of readers, it will get posted and answered soon. If it's not widely relevant, if it's very much like another question that just got answered (and any sensible person could extrapolate) and it's not going to cause a chain reaction of Snarklings hauling out their Clue Bats, it will wait around for months on the off-chance of a no-mail day. And eventually it will get hosed out of the in-box.

If the most important thing in anyone's life (or even in the Top 20 Most Important Things) is waiting for an answer from an anonymous blogger, even the Clue Tank won't finish the job.

I think I understand. So, did you get the email I just sent you asking if you got my other email? If so, please disregard the second, but not the first. Oh, never mind. I'll send you some daily emails for the next couple of weeks that explain all that. Okay?

Most people live in a very small world. If the get an e-mail, they send a reply. Waiting 24 hours to send that reply tears at their souls like the flesh-eating bacteria is destroying their unbathed thighs.

Miss Snark is kind to establish rules and kinder still to enforce them. It is this sort of tough love that makes us all better people.

I've always been mightily impressed that Miss Snark sends an email saying this has already been dealt with. Very polite considering the rest of us would just delete without bothering. Also impressed that a couple of questions have gone through to the keeper. Bit of a treasure this girl.